Bill Blass Speaker Series

The Bill Blass Speaker Series was established in 2002 with a bequest from fashion designer Bill Blass, a native Hoosier and friend of Indiana University. The Bill Blass Speaker Series is presented and hosted by the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Upcoming

Dyese Matthews, Unconventional Fashion Archives: The Memory Work of Black Womanhood and Material Culture in Harlem, New York City

Monday, March 10, 2025

5 p.m.

In this talk, Dr. Dyese Matthews explores ways that Harlem-based Black women challenge conventions of documentation and preservation by producing unconventional fashion archives through collecting, making, and wearing clothing. An award-winning researcher, author, and curator, Matthews is an assistant professor at Parsons School of Fashion in New York.

Petra Slinkard, From Sage to Salem: A journey of museum entrepreneurship and fashion history scholarship

Wednesday, April 09, 2025, 5 p.m.—Wednesday, April 09, 2025, 6 p.m.

Director of Curatorial Affairs and Putnam Curator of Fashion and Textiles of the Peabody Essex Museum, Eskenazi School alumna Petra Slinkard (B.S./B.A. ’03, M.S. ’08) will share her journey from her student days at Indiana University through her 15-year career as fashion curator and museum administrator.

Past speakers

Please see the archive for recent Bill Blass speakers.

We've been honored to host the following guests in previous years:

Sharon Kilfoyle, textile artist
Alastair Macleod, chairman of UK-based Hand & Lock Embroidery
Fran Morris-Rosman, Director of the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation
Lesley Frowick, Halston’s niece and author of the book Halston: Inventing American Fashion
Joanne Eicher, Author, dress scholar and Professor emeritus, University of Minnesota
Barbara Natoli Witt, jewelry artist
Alexander Julian, Fashion and Textile Designer
Brian Smith, founder of Ugg boots
Carmen Benavente, artist and author of Ninhue: Stitching Chilean Rural Life
Erich Biehle, textile designer
Jo Paoletti, Dress scholar and author of Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America and Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution
Joe Kucharski, Costume Designer and Project Manager, Walt Disney Imagineering
John Tiffany, author of Eleanor Lambert: Empress of Fashion
Julian Roberts, fashion designer and instructor of Subtraction Cutting
Natalie Chain, fashion designer and founder of sustainable fashion company Alabama Chanin
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and paper/textile artist Mary Hark
Susan Neill, Exhibitions Planning Director, the Field Museum
Lora Morlock, lecturer, Ryerson University

Bill Blass Speaker Series